Obama: ‘God has called them all home’

Last night, President Obama delivered a speech at a memorial service for those killed in the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. His speech was extremely religious in tone. But for me the really offensive part came toward the end of the speech when the President said about the victims that “God has called them all home.”

This is a surprising and extremely insensitive statement coming from the President. It is surprising that he would push his religion so forcefully on the nation at a time when people are emotionally vulnerable. Twenty kids and six adults were just murdered and the President is talking about how God is lonely and wants some company. I guess the pitter patter of Ethiopians kids who starved to death wasn’t enough for God.

What if some of the victims were called home to Hell instead of Heaven? That is what Christianity preaches, right? We all deserve to be tortured for all eternity and are only saved by grace alone. All those who are not saved by Jesus are destined to be tortured for all eternity in Hell, right? How does the President know that all the victims were saved?

The President’s statement also implies that God was the cause of death for these children. It wasn’t that Adam Lanza killed his mother, took her assault guns, and murdered a bunch of children and a few adults. No, this mass murder was planned perfectly by God. It was part of his divine plan to bring these kids “home.”

Maybe their parents would like them at their real home here on Earth in the land of the living. Maybe an all-powerful deity could have stepped in and saved these kids and all the other children that die every day from illnesses, starvation, accidents, and acts of violence committed by other crazy killers.

“God called them home?” Fuck that! Shame on President Obama for saying such a thing. Did God call home all the children and adults killed by Obama’s drone attacks?

If the President wants to avoid more children from being “called home” maybe he could push for strong gun regulations so that people like Lanza wouldn’t have the access to weapons of this kind. But no, that would require him to actually do something himself and who is he to get in the way of God calling children home.

Staks Rosch is a writer for the Skeptic Ink Network & Huffington Post, and is also a freelance writer for Publishers Weekly. Currently he serves as the head of the Philadelphia Coalition of Reason and is a stay-at-home dad.

True but irrelevant. What he said was simply Christian, not offensively Christian. He didn’t say it was God’s plan for them to die, but that they are now in heaven, as innocent children are usually accepted to go. The act of God “calling them home” was after the shooting.

Matthew 19:14: Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

This verse is usually interpreted to mean that little children already have salvation, since they are innocent in their young age. This of course depends on whether one believes in original sin, which really lacks any biblical basis. Even if it weren’t in the Bible, it could be assumed that they are not old enough to be fairly judged.

If the biblical god loves ”little children” he would not have drowned them all at the time of the flood (Gen. 6-8) or order them to be killed (1 Sam. 15:1-3), etc. And for Christians this god is Jesus. Yes, Jesus!
I think that the god who would do such terrible things to ”little children” would send them to hell. Salvation is an act of faith in the work of Christ and that applies to children. It’s something that the person must do: ”What must I do to be saved?” says Acts 16:30-31 for example. I know it makes no sense, but we’re talking about the Bible don’t forget.

I was wondering about that. Isn’t saying “God called them all home” just as offensive as saying that a rape-induced pregnancy is “God’s will”? Any believer in a just and merciful god should be appalled by either sentiment.
Why is it up to the non-believers and skeptics to point out how viciously anti-religion such statements are?

That would appear to rule out Christianity. Jesus apparently talked about everlasting fire and gnashing of teeth for Jews, nonbelievers, and other undesirables like us. The Gospel authors, who were presumably the primary sources for information of Jesus and Christianity, wanted to portray this as very important. (Matthew 13:41-42 for example)

I can’t honestly be too critical of President Obama for saying this, mostly because it is one of those sayings ingrained in Christian culture. They don’t even think about what the actual words mean anymore because they all know what is meant ie. God is looking after them now. This, presumably, is a way of coping with the loss.

There are hundreds of sayings in the culture which are either abhorrent or make no sense if you take the words literally.

I don’t see why this is so surprising. When the shit hits the fan is when most people feel the most religious. Unless you’re a staunch Atheist then you are probably feeling a little religious right now with kids dying all over the place and The “Mayan Apocalypse” right around the corner. None of this is surprising. Religious people need to make sense of tragedies and this is how they do it. This is how they have always done it. I don’t see a reason for the outrage, this kind of thing goes on all the time.

OK – let’s say that you’re a parent of a 6 year old killed by the shooter. Do you want the President of the United States to come to your town and say ” Dude, it sucks to be you. Some random asshole came to your town and killed your kid.” The POTUS might be right but sometimes speaking reality is not what we want from our leaders.

In many ways the whole statement is merely a reaffirmation of psychological projection. The parents wish they could have done more to protect the children. In their minds they failed, perhaps miserably. The statement that “God took them home,” is a statement to assuage the parent’s guilt. Even if they were powerless to protect the child, some bigger parent was there to “take them home” and look out for them.

Honestly folks, stop analyzing things to the extreme from an atheist perspective and perhaps consider than when confronted with things that are difficult for the rational mind to accept people sometimes rely on less than rational explanations.